After Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to visit India on May 30

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will be in India on May 30. With Apple CEO Tim Cook currently touring several cities, this peak summer season has become an unlikely favourite time for high-profile tech executives to visit the country.

NEW DELHI: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will be in India on May 30. With Apple CEO Tim Cook currently touring several cities, this peak summer season has become an unlikely favourite time for high-profile tech executives to visit the country.

In his third visit to the country in just seven months, Hyderabad-born Nadella will meet young entrepreneurs, developers, students and academicians in one session in Delhi, a person aware of the details told ET. The 47-year-old Microsoft chief will also attend a session with some 100-150 top executives of corporate India, which will be organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). It will be an hour-long interactive session with industry executives. Microsoft and CII confirmed Nadella's one-day visit to Delhi and that he will be attending the programmes.

Nadella, who completed two years as the top executive at Microsoft in February, was in India last December for his annual vacation, which was largely a personal visit. He met Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, and visited the campus of startup incubator T-hub and Microsoft development centre in Hyderabad during that trip.

In November, he had delivered a keynote address at Microsoft's 'Future Unleashed' event in Mumbai and met industry leaders such as Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra and Axis BankBSE -2.20 % managing director Shikha Sharma. India has become an important destination for global CEOs, from Google's Sundar Pichai to Facebook's Mark Zuckerburg and now Apple's Tim Cook.

These visits and increasing engagements underscore India's rise as a big market for tech companies with its growing Internet population, which is expected to touch 371 million by June as per a report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI). Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad recently said that the number of internet users in the country may cross 500 million within this year. Technology-enabled startup industry and IT industry have also witnessed massive growth in the last few years .As per the Economic Survey 2016-17, there were 19,400 technology enabled startups in India as of January 2016. That number is set to rise significantly with the government's programmes such as Digital India and Startup India. That also explains the rising interest of top tech CEOs in interacting and engaging with the thriving startup ecosystem and global tech community in India.

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